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GCB’s Raj Singh 50-over U-19 cricket continues today…Games being played with Red balls & White clothes
Sean Devers Reviews the Three-Day competition
After a fairly successful Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Raj Singh’s under-19 three-day cricket
Raj Singh
tournament the 50-over version of that competition began yesterday and continues today with second round matches.
The competition takes a break on Wednesday before the final preliminary round is played on Thursday. The tournament climaxes with the grand final on Saturday at Everest.
The 2015 Regional 50-over U-19 tournament will be played in Jamaica with white balls, colored clothes and Black Sight-Screens and a disappointing feature of the Raj Singh Insurance 50-over competition is that it is being played with Red Balls, white clothes and white Sight-Screens which is far from the ideal preparation for Jamaica. Also unlike years gone by, all of the matches are set for Demerara thus robbing other youngsters a chance of seeing the players in the flesh and the players the opportunity of seeing and learning about their country.
However, Marketing Manager of the GCB, Raj Singh, has sponsored both competitions and told Kaieteur Sports that inadequate funds continue to prevent these things from happening.
“The GCB is aware that the Regional under-19 tournament will be played with white balls and colored clothes but due to a lack of more funds this could not be done this year. We were trying to make it possible at the last minute and spoke about it at a meeting last Friday night,” Singh lamented.
In a bowler dominated three-day tournament, West Indies under-19 left-hander, Shemron Hetmyer
Kemo Paul
playing for Berbice, scored the only hundred when he played against the National U-17s at Bourda in the second round, while West Indies U-19 fast bowling all-rounder Kemo Paul was best all-rounder in the tournament as he contributed with both bat and ball for Essequibo. Like Hetmyer, he looked a class ahead of his peers and seemed well set for a ton on 52 when he was controversially run out against Demerara at DCC.
Left-arm spinner Keanu Harry was the highest wicket-taker and also registered the best bowling figures (7-66) in the four-team competition in which all of the spinners did well, with off-spinner Sagar Hetheramani picking up 6-59 on the last day for the National U-17s against Demerara in the drawn final round encounter at Everest.
Sherfane Rutherford had 17 wickets, the most by a pacer, while U-17s spinner Ashmead Nedd, Essequibo’s Akeeni Adams were also among the wickets.
Berbice looked the best side in the tournament. They began with a 10-wicket win against the National U-17s and were only team to win all three of their games. But a disappointing feature for them was the repeated use off spinner Balchand Baldeo to share the new with the only ‘real’ pacer in the side, Grisean Grant, who bowled impressively.
The National U-17s pacers were given the most opportunities to impress the National youth selectors in a tournament which was also used to help pick the national U-19 team for this year’s Regional U-19 tournament in Jamaica.
This will be the first time since 1968 when Regional youth cricket was first played, that no three-day matches are scheduled.
Essequibo looked an organised unit with a bunch of talented players who played consistent throughout the competition until they saved their worst performance for the final day of the three-day format and were bowled out for 94 to lose by an innings and 100 runs against Berbice.
The performances in the tournament were of a fairly high standard even though the players lacked consistency, while the lack of scorers on the Scoreboard at most of the venues, the quality of the low and slow pitches, which all favored spin, the inept shot selection by most of the batsmen and the Umpiring, especially in the DCC game which involved the debatable issue involving Umpire Ryan Banwarie, were some of the low points in the competition.
The selectors will no doubt focus their attention on the one-day format to pick the Guyana U-19 50-over team to travel to Jamaica for a tournament that began in Trinidad in 1998 when rain washed out the three-day competition that year.
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